Writing Tips

What You Need To Know About Trifecta Of Writing

How to use the headline, featured image, and subtitle to help your readers click on the story.

There is a slogan in marketing that says, “Sell the sizzle, not the steak.”

The truth is that sizzle will only bring the people in; it is the steak that will keep them coming back. But if they never go in there, they’ll never know about the steak. Both the sizzle and the steak are essential. Focusing more on one or the other is a recipe for failure.

As writers who take pride in their work, and the purpose for which they write, you know you have the steak, the best darn steak on this side of Mississippi and anywhere in the South. You need to sell the sizzle to get them to come in.

The readers are looking for good stories to read. They want steak, and when they hear the sizzle, they go in. Unfortunately, these days, they are more often disappointed than not, while places with good steak are empty, wondering why.

If you are not getting the views you deserve, it may be because you’re not sizzling. So how can you create the sizzle?

I have worked in the restaurant industry for more than thirty years; that’s why I am using the steak metaphor. See if you can relate.

In the food industry, they know that people eat with their nose and eyes before they do with their mouths. How the food is presented, and its aroma will have a definite impact on how they enjoy the food.

What does that have to do with your writing? Everything.

Just as the plate presentation and the aroma of the food sends a signal to your brain to get ready for an enjoyable dinner, there are things that you need to allow the reader to experience before they prepare to read your masterly crafted story.

The Trifecta of Writing

There are three things that you need to pay equal attention to in addition to your story itself. The lack of awareness to any one of them can mean that you may miss the reader as they scan the vast landscape of the platform on which you write.

1. The headline or the title.
2. The featured image.
3. The subtitle.

On Medium’s homepage and the app, the reader sees the headline and the featured image before they even click on the story. It is your sizzle; your opportunity to invite the reader to come in. On the embedded stories, they’ll also see the subtitle. All three are essential. The headline and the image are sizzle, and the subtitle is the plate presentation and aroma.

The headline or the title?

Do people click anyway? Or do we need to give more revealing titles to our stories? Curious what you think… asked Desiree Driesenaar in one of her stories.

I responded: Some people can “feel” the story, and the title doesn’t matter. Others need to know what’s in there, so the title/headline has to do the job.

To which she said: I don’t think the curators of Medium belong in that first category… and many rational thinkers neither… and those are definitely the majority (still… it might change…)

Let this conversation set the stage for Writing Effective Headlines.

There is a difference between a title and a headline. The following are the actual titles from my Medium Feed this morning.

The Line The Best Collaboration The Pill Give Me Space

And here are some headlines, again from my daily feed.

5 Take Away From The Current Situation Dark Days Ahead for America — We’re Finding Out Who We Really Are My Parents Can’t Afford to Retire Early, and I’m Terrified They’ll Have to Start Working Again

None of the titles gives me any reason to click on the story. There is no sizzle. These headlines, on the other hand, provide information about the content, but don’t make me curious. I might or might not click even if it relates to my interest. It’s describing the sizzle, so I can’t hear it.

Then there are these headlines that represent different fields. All of them are intriguing and want me to learn more. I may or may not click on them, but they are tempting.

How Zoom Beat the Tech Giants What I Learned From Making Hot Sauce at Scale The Easter Miracle No One Believes 11 Possible Outcomes For You Once This Pandemic Is Over

And finally, there are those that reek of clickbait. But it doesn’t mean they are.

This 3-Minute Exercise Will Change the Way You Solve Problems Struggle With Self-Discipline? Try Forming These Habits

As you can see, there is a whole smorgasbord of options when it comes to giving your story a heading. It is a science and an art in itself.

Medium is rich with instructional stories on how to create a compelling headline. Shannon Ashley has been writing on Medium for a long time and is one of the few gurus I respect here. I love her detailed article on how to craft compelling headlines. Here is what she says:

When you’re competing for a reader’s attention online, one of the worst things you can do is say nothing. Your writing needs to make a statement. And that statement starts with your headline.

Keep in mind that the headline is how you catch a reader’s attention (along with a great image), but your story is what gets them to stay and read the whole thing.

Headlines are all about grabbing attention while setting the tone of your piece. But it will always be the way you tell your story that makes your readers stay.

In other words, the sizzle will get them in; the steak will keep them coming back.

The featured image

Make sure you understand Medium’s rules on using images. I know that the editors of Illumination are particularly keen that you do, and that you follow them. Ask me how I know? (Thanks, Timothy Key)

Sometimes, the image will catch a reader’s attention before the headline for reasons only relevant to the reader.

The image above caught my attention because it reminded me of the world’s oldest tree, which I had visited during my travels. When I glanced at the title, I had no interest in the story, but I clicked just to see the full image. AS it turns out, the picture was of the said tree.

Your featured image is a part of the sizzle. Give it the same attention as your headline. Here is another picture that stopped me for a different reason while I was scanning. It’s an image I had used just last week on one of my stories. It’s a perfect example of laziness by two writers. However, it is not uncommon to see multiple pieces with the same image.

As we scan, our brain says, I’ve seen that before, and our story gets ignored.

With thousands of stories on Medium every day, we can’t possibly know who else has used the same image, or who is going to use it the same day, for that matter. Rather than grabbing the first image on Unsplash that appeals to you, go deeper; try using different keywords to search for images.

Here is an excellent piece of work by Remington Write to help you with finding good images you can use that not everyone on Medium is looking at. Yes, it takes a bit more effort, but do you want to stand out or be a part of the crowd?

The subtitle: What’s it about?

As I said before, the readers may or may not see the subtitle displayed as they scan their feed. Even when they do, the headline and the featured image has to stop them first before they can read the subtitle.

The headline and the image are sizzle, and the subtitle is the plate presentation and aroma.

The subtitle is your second chance at grabbing their attention by giving them more relevant information. The Sizzle has brought them in. Let them see and smell the food before they take the first bite.

The subtitle can serve one of the two purposes. Your clickbait worthy title got them to stop and read. Now your subtitle can set them up to enjoy or be disappointed.

Remember the two titles I said reeked of clickbait? Here is the first one with its subtitle.

This 3-Minute Exercise Will Change the Way You Solve Problems

‘Structured thinking’ is about building a big answer by asking many small questions

That sounds intriguing to me; I may check out the story. The author has clued me in to what the exercise is.

Here is the second one with its subtitle.

Struggle With Self-Discipline? Try Forming These Habits

Without discipline, we give up easily

It still doesn’t give me any more info, so I am going to pass on this one.

Getting them to stop and click is the first step. Getting them to keep reading is another, and your subtitle takes the lead to get them reading the rest.

There you have it — the trifecta of a writer’s success on Medium, or any other platform.

As always, thank you for reading. And here are some more stories.

If you liked this story, you might enjoy these others.

Rasheed Hooda is a published author and a regular contributor to ILLUMINATION, a writers’ community on Medium where writers support each other.

He is a self-proclaimed weirdo who lives a Freedom Lifestyle and writes about related topics — Travel (a top writer), Personal Growth, Freedom, and entrepreneurship. (Get the Newsletter)

“You can let others tell you what it means to be successful, or you can decide it for yourself.”